Dear friend

Dear friend,

Thank your for visiting my heart yesterday.  Thank you for coming into my mind with a gentle knock and a whisper, for taking my hand and leading me through so many memories of you. 

The afternoon we spent at the lake, on the dock, swimming out to it, climbing up on it, letting the sun dry our bodies, feeling safe.

Our poetry contests, the joke of the key to our heart on the floor.

Your black leather baseball cap.

Your teaching me how to do a flip off the diving board, your patience as I tried and tried and your excitement when I succeeded.

Do it again!
No.
Do it again!
No.  I did it once.  I'm happy with that.
Quitter.

Tubing the lazy Guadalupe River, gazing up at the Cypress trees leaning far over the water's edge, creating mottled light and shadows on our faces and shoulders.

How your perspective shed new light on my understanding.

How frustrated you would get with me when I wouldn't break my routine.

You and your damn plans, God forbid you change your routine just once.

All you had wanted was for me to stay out later than I had planned. I wouldn't budge. We were so young then, how could we have known that my routine was the only thing that kept me from losing my footing?

I remember reading you the nursery rhymes you never were read as a child, buying you a book of them and watching you turn its pages.

I remember your laughter.

You've been gone for almost 15 years now, and I always remember you as if you were this morning.

I miss you. I always miss you.